Time With Teeth Marks In It

A woman
wearing
a
wig

eats a
peach,

and looks around
at us
wondering,

it seems,

who’s next?

Some properties
within her,

like a banana
refrigerated,

have been arrested.

Meanwhile, I am
still
oozing into life,
haunting the
house

as much as you
haunt
the house.

We are
climbing the stairs
in
opposite
directions.

Somewhere else
the despot sings
in the bathtub, fingers his
blade, his pistol,
drinks his pear
brandy,

eats fruit salad,
sandwiches, sardines
from a can.

The fly,
who is big and
hairy as a dog in my dream,
leans on his cane
and waits for
death to jump out of the closet.

Surprise.
The skull has grown hair
and the fly’s
still around.

I admire his
bulky form

just
as the huge gray
slab
of a cloud
covers the sun
like a
hand
impervious and

takes
my light
away.